Chapter 40: The Competition Begins? No, the Hunt Begins
The next day, under a sky so clear it seemed washed clean, the sister school exchange event officially began at Tokyo Jujutsu High.
A cool wind moved through the forest, stirring the dense canopy overhead. Sunlight filtered through the leaves in shifting patches, painting the ground in restless gold and shadow.
Both schools' students had already assembled at their respective starting points.
In the specially prepared observation room, the atmosphere was far more relaxed on the surface than it had any right to be.
Gojo Satoru sat with one leg crossed over the other, somehow having acquired a cup of milk tea in the middle of all this. Beside him, Utahime Iori sat stiffly, keeping an almost deliberate distance, her expression sour enough to curdle milk.
"Gojo, can you at least try to act like a proper teacher for once?" Utahime said, unable to hold back any longer. "Principal Gakuganji is right there."
Following her glare, one could indeed see Gakuganji Yoshinobu seated in the main position, his back straight, eyes closed, looking less like a principal and more like some grim old statue carved out of malice and stubbornness.
Gojo took a lazy sip of milk tea and smiled.
"Utahime, you're too rigid. That's why you're still single."
A vein bulged at Utahime's temple.
"Gojo."
"Relax a little," he said cheerfully, as if he had not just chosen violence with words. "This is the exciting part."
His gaze drifted to the row of monitors in front of them, and the smile on his lips deepened into something sharper.
"After all, the show's about to start."
He pressed the broadcast button.
"Everybody ready?"
His light, almost playful voice echoed through the speakers set up across the field.
"Then let's begin. First event of the sister school exchange, team battle, start!"
The moment the announcement ended, figures shot into motion from both ends of the forest.
On Kyoto's side, Noritoshi Kamo led the formation. Behind him were Momo Nishimiya, Kokichi Muta's Mechamaru puppet, Mai Zenin, and Kasumi Miwa. As for Aoi Todo, that walking natural disaster had vanished the instant the match began.
"Proceed according to plan," Kamo said calmly as they pushed into the forest.
His tone was steady, but everyone around him knew what those words really meant.
"We ignore Todo. Our primary targets are Yuji Itadori and Yami."
"Momo," he continued without slowing down, "take the sky. Confirm their positions."
"Got it."
Momo kicked off the ground on her broom and shot upward, disappearing beyond the treetops like a bird of prey.
"Mechamaru, you're on ranged suppression."
"Understood."
Everything appeared to be moving smoothly.
As long as they followed Gakuganji's orders, used their numerical advantage, and cornered the targets quickly, the rest would be easy.
At least, that was what Kyoto thought.
They had advanced less than five hundred meters into the forest when the atmosphere changed.
A faint crackling sound suddenly pierced the silence.
Not loud, but sharp enough to make the nerves seize.
Zzt.
Then the temperature rose.
It happened so abruptly that several of them instinctively halted.
"What was that?" Miwa asked, fingers tightening around the hilt of her katana as she looked around warily.
From above, Momo's panicked voice suddenly screamed through the communicator.
"Something's coming! It's too fast, I can't track it at all!"
She did not even get to finish the sentence.
Boom!
A blazing red streak ripped through the forest like divine punishment descending from the sky.
It smashed through layers of trees in a straight line, wrapped in golden arcs of lightning. Trunks blackened and burst apart in its wake. The earth split open where it passed.
It was not an attack.
It looked like a natural disaster wearing the shape of one.
"Scatter!" Kamo roared.
The Kyoto students reacted instantly, diving in different directions.
A heartbeat later, the streak crashed down exactly where they had been standing.
The impact shook the forest.
A massive crater exploded open, dirt and shattered wood blasting outward in all directions. The shockwave alone sent Mai and Miwa flying like dolls, rolling hard across the ground before crashing into separate tree trunks.
For a few seconds, all that remained was dust.
Thick, choking dust.
Kamo wiped blood from a cut on his cheek, his expression grim as he stared at the crater before them.
That had not been a warning shot.
That had been a declaration.
As the smoke slowly cleared, a figure emerged from the center of the crater.
A black high school uniform.
A jet black cursed tool at his waist.
Shiranui.
Yami stood there alone, calm as ever, as if he had merely taken a casual step onto the field instead of making an entrance that looked like a meteor strike.
He lifted his head.
Those golden red eyes swept over the entire Kyoto team.
There was no obvious killing intent in them.
That made it worse.
Instead of rage or madness, what pressed down on them was something colder, heavier, more absolute. The pressure of someone who had already decided how this would go.
"I thought I'd have to go looking for you," Yami said quietly.
His voice carried perfectly through the forest.
"Looks like you were in a hurry to find me too."
Kamo's face darkened.
He had considered many possibilities, but not this one.
Not the possibility that Yami would abandon his team, charge alone into the heart of Kyoto's formation, and intercept all of them by himself.
"Yami," Kamo said, narrowing his eyes as one hand drifted toward the blood pouch hidden at his side, "are you planning to stop all of us by yourself?"
"No."
Yami shook his head.
A faint smile touched his lips, so slight it was almost invisible.
Then his hand came to rest on the hilt of Shiranui.
Click.
His thumb nudged the guard just enough to make the scabbard and blade ring against each other.
The clear note echoed through the silent forest.
It sounded like a funeral bell.
"I'm just here to tell you something."
Yami lowered his body slightly.
His posture changed in an instant.
What had seemed relaxed and unguarded suddenly became a perfect draw stance, quiet and deadly. The air around him began to distort, as if a furnace had been lit inside his body. Heat spilled from him in waves, subtle at first, then steadily rising.
Even the sunlight filtering through the trees seemed to bend around that stance.
Kamo's pupils contracted.
Mai, still half kneeling from the shockwave, felt cold sweat run down her back.
Miwa swallowed so hard it hurt.
At the edge of the crater, with one hand on his sword and the entire Kyoto team in front of him, Yami looked less like a student and more like a gatekeeper standing before the mouth of hell.
He raised his eyes.
"This road," he said softly, "is closed."
.....
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